[ianizaguirre]

i have one 96 watt light on my 40 gallon tank should i get a Electronic Ballast??? would it make it like a 150 wattt light????

Whats an Electronic Ballast and whats its purpose !!!

[palmbeach2210]

From Wikipedia

"An electronic lamp ballast uses solid state electronic circuitry to provide the proper starting and operating electrical condition to power one or more fluorescent lamps and more recently HID lamps. Electronic ballasts usually change the frequency of the power from the standard mains (e.g., 60 Hz in U.S.) frequency to 20,000 Hz or higher, substantially eliminating the stroboscopic effect of flicker (100 or 120 Hz, twice the line frequency) associated with fluorescent lighting (see photosensitive epilepsy). In addition, because more gas remains ionized in the arc stream, the lamps actually operate at about 9% higher efficacy above approximately 10 kHz. Lamp efficacy increases sharply at about 10 kHz and continues to improve until approximately 20 kHz.[1] Because of the higher efficiency of the ballast itself and the improvement of lamp efficacy by operating at a higher frequency electronic ballasts offer higher system efficacy."

In short: Saves energy! Uses 5-12% less energy than magnetic H.I.D. (depending on lamp specification)